Lie Still
by Shadowfax
Summary: Between what remains of his life and the finality of a welcome death, Wesley reflects on failure.


_Angel_ and all associated persons, places, and events are the intellectual creation of Joss Whedon, and probably belong to Mutant Enemy or some other corporation. I do not own any part of them and am receiving no monetary compensation for this fanwork.  
I just watched "Lineage," for the first time since it originally aired, and this decided to form in my brain and pretty much poured itself out onto the page... hopefully it makes sense.  
Title, lines at the end, and numerous references in the story are from the poem "Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed" by Dylan Thomas.  


* * *

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"Lie Still"  
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You almost cannot feel the emptiness that fills you as her body stills in your arms, it is so consuming. Her breath, the soft warmth brushing your skin with frightened and desperate movement like a small animal cringing before the inevitability of the stooping hawk- but _alive _for that fear, _alive_ in that warmth- her breath stops, the memory of it making your flesh abruptly cold. You know her; she is life and she is small movements and she is quick smiles that touch you in a place deep within that has never been touched, and you know the world cannot exist without her in it. You know this, even as you know also that she is gone- taken from you because it is your failure that she is gone. You are the one who fails.

You feel the bite of the glass as it cuts your flesh; you see the blood well and drop. You don't pull at your bonds and you watch her eyes in their desperate madness and you know that this is also your failure. Perhaps the first large failure, stinging more than the others before it, throbbing like the burn she gave you earlier. Though it is an old burn now, such an old pain; nothing but an old ache- as old as life and as binding as family. And you know even now that you have felt a worse pain, or perhaps it is left for you to feel at some point in the future, and it will be so, so much worse as it opens a pathway into the very depths of the storm of madness that you can see swirling about you, that you think someday you will sail into and be glad for.

You feel her standing behind you as you watch the pages fall to the ground, consumed in fire. You turn to her, expecting some respite within from your failure to protect her in life, some relief that you have protected her now in death, but she smiles- a slow, sad smile- and you know you have failed, again. You know this is not it- it is not the final pain, the one that consumes you, but it hurts as well because you _tried_, you tried so hard and you cannot save her. But something flares in her slow smile, and you think that maybe this time it wasn't a failure so complete; that there was something in it of hope. A hope that could be a comfort in a dark place for her, but it touches only a void of tragedy within you.

His fangs sink into your arm and you wonder if this is forgiveness- this sharp, stinging, soul dragging pain- and you know that you chose this path, as you chose every path that you have followed. It seemed the best choice at the time; and now you think that it was the only course open for your wandering boat. You would choose it again, here; you were wrong before, so this is the repentance you make. Even then, you think, you would have chosen the same- to wrap the child tightly and hold it close, smiling as if the world was not coming undone. It was the only choice you could see, and perhaps that is your true failure.

You think on this, lying on the hard ground, burning and turning, sufferer with the wound in the throat. You wonder if anyone ever, accomplishes what they set out to do. It must happen sometimes, because people seem so confident that goals can be achieved- it must happen sometimes, but you think, not here; not now. Not in any place you have seen. You think this pain is not yet so great as what you know is to come, but you cannot speak to reassure even yourself. You will fail here, bleeding out under the night sky, for the last time, and never reach that pain that will steal your soul.

But you remember her standing there, surrounded by police officers, offering her wrists willingly to be bound, and you think that even in your failure someone, in a wild storm of singing, _someone_ is found. Perhaps it was just your place to fail, to shed the husk to find the power within.

If it is your place to fail, then you wonder why sometimes you taste the sunlight... Even more than her touch there is a warmth in belonging, in friendship. You know that is something you had never felt before- before he called you by the name of someone you'd never met, someone who was his own failure, before that moment when he claimed you, wanted you there- no one had ever wanted you before, asked you to stay; had faith in your worth.

It was that faith that gave you faith in yourself- another thing you had never known. A thing that makes them all look to you, makes them want you to tell them what to do- a thing that asserts the inevitability of the choices you have to make, the hard choices that lead to people dying. And you remember, with that dark humor you have come to know so well, a time when they wouldn't have listened no matter how you tried.

Then, your choices didn't matter, should you have been so bold to make them, because she made her own choices. She knew what she wanted- with the purity of youth, and the purity of eyes that had suffered more than their years for a destiny unchosen but embraced fully- and she would not listen to those who told and those who demanded because you had not let learned to _ask_. She was stronger than you, than anyone who stood before her; and while you thought you understand something of a pretense of strength your bulwark was never so impregnable. This is the time when you wonder if your goals become failures because you are the one who attempts them, or if you were sent here to fail because they already knew that no one could have done otherwise.

You do fail, but when she looks at you through the thick glass and she drops the phone, drop kicks her way out of the building- when she does all of this because of you, because _you_ came and needed her- you think maybe you're not the only one who hungers for forgiveness, who wants to feel the sink of those fangs and _know_ that here, now, you are repaying a mistake you made. Maybe you're not the only one who fails- not the only one who trembles under the moon, listening.

This is what you think on as your fingers feel the blood flow out between them, flowing down your abdomen, and you think absently that she cut your throat not your stomach, but you remember that it was _you_: you who cut off her head to save her, burned the contract and still couldn't save her; you who gave up on her because she couldn't be saved, but went to her for help and she gave it; you who betrayed him first, and wondered why he wouldn't forget; you who spoke too late and watched as her slender fingers traced along his dark skin. It was you- yes it was _you_- who took her finally, took her fully and knew she was yours, and savored that, never knowing how short your time would be.

She strokes hair back from your face and her throat is closed from tears held in check and you find that you, here in the end, cannot bring yourself to care that everything you see is a falsehood. Here in the end you have failed again, but, without reason to temper you, you ride forth eagerly through the drowned. You can hear her voice, soft and pleasant in its deceit- the only sound left in the world- and she sings softly some words you cannot hear, cannot begin to understand:_  
We heard the sea sound sing,  
We saw the salt sheet tell._

And your eyes are still now, for your voyage has begun to the end of your wound.

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End file.
